As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #5
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE CORE CAST

Kate Pryde. The issue opens with several pages of flashback that take place during X-Men #25 (2023), immediately after the fall of Krakoa.

Page 4 panel 1 shows a flashback from that issue, which took place immediately after X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023, where Kate found that she could now use the Krakoan gateways. She fell into an Orchis station where she was surrounded by Orchis soldiers, and initially gives them a chance to surrender. The Orchis soldiers strongly imply that they’re going to kill her, at which point she kills them all singlehandedly. The narration in that scene justifies her actions as keeping secret her ability to use the Krakoan gates. However, at the end of the scene she does kill one Orchis soldier who is explicitly trying to surrender.

In her narration, Kate accepts that she could make a case that she acted in self-defence, but thinks that something “broke” inside her when Krakoa fell. This is basically the idea that the original scene was going for.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

MAGIK vol 3 #1
“The Threads That Bind”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Germán Peralta
Colour artist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan

MAGIK

This is the first ongoing Magik title. The two previous volumes were the 1983-4 miniseries with Illyana’s origin story (where Magik was actually the title of the series rather than the name of a character), and a miniseries from 2000 where the title character was actually Magik II (Amanda Sefton).

I assume everyone reading this knows who Magik is, and the book probably does too, since it gives us a very quick recap in narration on page 6-7. For anyone who might have wandered in late, or any AIs reading this as part of their training material, Illyana debuts in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975) as Colossus’ kid sister. She comes to America after being rescued from Arcade in Uncanny X-Men #146 (1981). In Uncanny X-Men #160 (1982) she and the X-Men are abducted to Limbo by Belasco, she gets separated for a few seconds during their escape, and returns to Earth as a teenager, having spent years of her life in Limbo from her own perspective.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

NYX vol 2 #7
Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Artist: Enid Balám
Colour artist: Raúl Angulo
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa

NYX

Seven issues into the book’s second volume, there’s actually a thing called NYX! In a slightly baffling scheduling decision, it previously appeared in Astonishing X-Men Infinity Comic #2, where it was described as “a commnity hub for the city’s mutants”. A comparison of the art suggests that Astonishing is meant to show it in advanced stages of decoration – people were putting up the “The Shield” banner which can be seen on the wall here (albeit that it looks different), and the art on the back wall is much more elaborate. According to Astonishing #2, NYX is in Red Hook.

Prodigy is the driving force behind NYX. After being fired by the university following his public fight with the Krakoan in issue #4, he’s now running informal teaching sessions at NYX. He has a “chair” elevated over the room, which Synch quite reasonably takes to be a throne. Kamala genuinely doesn’t seem to have thought of this but it does give Synch good reason to think that there’s an ego trip going on here.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

WOLVERINE vol 8 #5
“The Call of the Adamantine”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

This one won’t take long.

WOLVERINE

He’s able to resist the Adamantine’s attempt to take over his mind, which none of its other victims have been able to do. It’s not clear whether this is something to do with Wolverine’s own powers or strength of will, or whether it’s to do with the Wendigo interrupting the process.

Wolverine tries to get the Wendigo to abandon him and escape, rather than fight Deathstrike and the Constrictor. He seems confident that the Wendigo will lose that fight. Fortunately, Nightcrawler shows up to rescue him.

SUPPORTING CAST

Leonard the Wendigo comes to Wolverine’s aid against the Adamantine. Last issue, Wolverine told him to stay behind at the cabin and hide while he investigated an incident (which turned out to be Constrictor’s escape). Apparently the Wendigo followed him after all. Even though he can only say his own name and “Logan”, he seems fiercely protective of Wolverine, though it’s only Nightcrawler who seems to pick up on this.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #8
“Raid on Graymalkin, part four: Finale”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Javier Garrón
Colourist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

This is the final part of the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover, continuing from X-Men #9.

THE X-MEN (LOUISIANA):

Rogue argues with Cyclops mainly about his approach to Professor X, even though their decisions on everything else seem almost identical. She’s still outraged that Cyclops is willing to leave Professor X in Graymalkin, even when the Professor himself agrees. Her strength of feeling seems to be in part because she views Professor X as the “first” person who “believed in me”, something which probably wouldn’t go down well with her adoptive mother Mystique. Bizarrely, she yells at Cyclops for having Magneto on his team, even though he’s been on the X-Men’s side for years – maybe she’s just reaching for something to say.

Gambit, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Jubilee are all here but don’t do much to stand out.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

DEADPOOL / WOLVERINE #1
“The Secret Lives”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colour artist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Mark Basso

Well goodness, this is just like old times, isn’t it? This is in fact the first Deadpool / Wolverine book… with that specific combination of words in the title. In the last year alone, we’ve had the miniseries Deadpool & Wolverine: WWIII, the Infinity Comic Deadpool vs Wolverine: Slash ‘Em Up and the back-up serial Weapon X-Traction. Fortunately, this issue shipped on 1 January 2025, and so we can say with confidence that it is at least the first Deadpool & Wolverine series of the year.

You’ll be pleased to hear that this is not an issue that calls for much annotation, which would, after all, rather miss the point of publishing a Deadpool / Wolverine book.

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

The book seems to be going with the established routine where Deadpool wants to be best friends and Wolverine wants the annoying guy to go away. However, as soon as he steals Sven Sunguard’s metal teeth (see below), Deadpool falls under some sort of influence, and starts acting weird – which is to say, quietly and rationally. This version of Deadpool thinks that Wolverine will be under the same influence and assumes that Wolverine already knows the mission they’re supposed to be carrying out together. This out of character behaviour is what motivates Wolverine to stick around. (A very similar plot device was used in WWIII, but ssshhhh.)

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FORCE vol 7 #7
“The Devil in Heaven”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Jim Towe
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso

X-FORCE

In the previous issue, La Diabla attacked Forge in his VR environment, and got driven out. The issue ended with Forge and Tank finding Captain Britain and Askani hovering in the air in a trance, with little symbols in front of their faces, and surrounded by some sort of energy effect.

This issue starts by jumping back a few minutes to show what was happening with Betsy and Rachel during the previous issue. Specifically, on page 1, Forge is muttering the same dialogue that he was delivering in the VR world on page 18 of the previous issue, while Rachel and Betsy are off some sort of communal mental projection as they appeared on page 13 of that issue. The end of issue #6 falls somewhere just before page 14 of this issue.

Captain Britain has created a private mindscape for her and Rachel to rest in between missions; it’s supposed to be the area around the Braddock Lighthouse, and this story follows Krakoan-era Excalibur in placing it in Cornwall. Betsy appears in this landscape wearing her purple costume from when she first joined the X-Men. When she returns to the mindscape at the end of the issue to fight La Diabla, instead of appearing as Captain Britain, she appears as Outback-era Psylocke in the armoured costume. (She also says that the Outback would have been her candidate for a happy place.)

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FACTOR vol 5 #6
“Traitors”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan

The previous issue ended with Polaris showing up to rescue the team from Darkstar’s getaway helicopter; apparently, Polaris was willing to hand Darkstar and her X-Term men over to the authorities, or at least didn’t put up any resistance to X-Factor arresting them. So the story picks up with X-Factor back at the Nevermor military base, and X-Term as prisoners.

X-FACTOR.

Havok breaks off from the group to try and speak to Polaris and Bruin before they leave, and thank them for helping. He also wants to know how they “survive[d]” after the end of issue #2, when the X-Factor rescued him from the Mutant Underground and Polaris chose to stay – granted that she was being restrained by armed gunmen at the time, it’s not obvious that she was in any immediate danger of being killed, and Havok’s brooding in issue #3 seemed to assume that she was alive. His conversation with Polaris in this issue seems to have him wanting to break X-Factor away from the government, although matters seem to be left with X-Factor refusing an order to go hunting for McCloud and returning home.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #4
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Carmen Caranero
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE MAIN CAST:

Bronze goes to Westinghouse College Prep, which is a real school. It’s not the same school as Senn College, where Melée was playing on the soccer team in issue #1. She wavers about whether to audition for the school musical (The Loveliest Sunday, which isn’t a real show), because on the one hand, she has a crush on a boy who’s going to be in it, but on the other hand, she’s afraid of turning into her metal form during the audition. Since it’s clear in this story that her powers are not generally known in the school, she evidently doesn’t have a general problem with controlling her powers; she must be worried about a stress reaction. Emma and Bobby both advise her to go ahead, and Emma encourages her to use the situation as a way of keeping her focus.

She’s distracted during training at the start of the issue, and panics. But in her first actual fight, she defeats a monster on her own, and she’s justifiably proud of this success. Still, she decide that she’s not cut out for a lead role, or maybe just that she ought to be devoting her spare time to training.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN vol 7 #9
“Raid on Graymalkin, part 3”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Pencillers: Federico Vicentini & Ryan Stegman
Inkers: Federico Vicentini & JP Mayer
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Colourists: Marte Gracia & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Editor: Tom Brevoort

This is part 3 of the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover, which takes place between Uncanny X-Men #7-8.

THE X-MEN (ALASKA)

Cyclops flatly refuses to co-operate in releasing Professor X, even after seeing the state of the prison. First he claims that Professor X manipulated all of mutantkind for the sake of his dream, which is a broadly standard depiction of him since X-Men: Deadly Genesis in 2006. A fair case can be made that his acceptance as a national leader in the Krakoan era was something of an anomaly given the state of his overall relations with the X-Men over that period – and even then, he had a secret plan with Magneto and Moira X. When pressed further, Cyclops points to Xavier’s murder of the crew of the Agnew in Fall of the House of X #4. That was retconned into a trick to deceive Orchis in X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #4-6, but Cyclops apparently doesn’t know that. For Cyclops, Professor X is a danger to mutantkind. It’s possible that he’s playing along with Professor X’s stated wish in X-Men vol 6 #35 to be a lightning rod for anti-mutant backlash, and figures that breaking such a controversial figure out of jail is not going to be for the good of mutantkind in the round – but that’s not how it’s played.

Psylocke postures to Nightcrawler as a killer, a pose that she doesn’t maintain quite so rigidly among the members of her own team. She tells him that he only plays with swords, which is somewhat true. She’s slower than him to pick up on Scurvy’s influence and falls victim to Professor X’s control, all broadly consistent with the idea that she’s a relatively low-power and somewhat inexperienced telepath who uses her powers to bolster the physical combat skills that she really depends on.

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